The Knight's Mysterious Maid
Chapter 167: Future (1)

Chapter 167: Future (1)

Annalise smiled in the face of the person who had to be her greatest challenge.

Beatrice sipped her tea that Edwin was kind enough to prepare for her. "It is such a beautiful day, isn’t it?" She asked, stirring the tea and then inhaling the wonderful mix.

"It is," Annalise replied, looking up at the sun. There wasn’t much rain for a while now which was good because she did not need to keep cleaning her shoes of mud.

"How are you doing as Rafael’s maid? I know my son can be a bit quiet, but I hope that does not scare you. He can be fun to be around when it opens up and let you know more about him," said Beatrice.

Annalise frowned. What part of Rafael was quiet as everyone liked to say? The man was just as talkative as her. More talkative than she expected because of what everyone said. There were many times when she expected him to get frustrated and tell her to shut up, but he would smile and continue the conversation.

Sometimes it felt like she was speaking to a friend as opposed to her employer. Now that she thought about it, she had many conversations with Rafael about random things and she enjoyed it. Sometimes they were on the same page or sometimes they had a different opinion, but he had never belittled her.

It was frustrating that she enjoyed speaking with him and she couldn’t say a single bad thing about him as her employee. She had been right in what she told Thomas about Rafael not being bad. Aside from him being on the enemy side, if there was no war, Annalise could strangely see herself being friends with Rafael.

"Annalise."

Annalise snapped out of her thoughts and looked at Beatrice. "I’m sorry. I didn’t hear what you said."

Beatrice smiled as she got her answer from Annalise being in a daze. "Never mind. Thank you for accompanying me when you are to be with Rafael. I hope it didn’t upset you that you are not down there taking care of him."

"It does not," Annalise answered, briefly looking down at the yard where Rafael and River stood. "Rafael told me to stay with you so I am happy to do as I was told."

"How lovely," Beatrice replied, putting down her cup. "I enjoy being around you. You are always like a breath of fresh air. You don’t need to be so tense about what I saw this morning with his breakfast. I don’t think anything of it and I won’t say a word."

"Thank you. It will not happen again," Annalise promised.

"Why not? If he offers you food and you wish to eat, you are free to eat. I know how the town would react to learning of this, but it will only get out if one of the two of you speaks about it, and I doubt Rafael would. We are not uptight people who look down on our servants. There is nothing to be worried about," Beatrice said, reaching out to touch Annalise’s hand.

Annalise wanted to pull her hand away from Beatrice since there was still the guilty feeling she had knowing she had once spoken of wanting to kill Rafael and now knowing how much it would hurt his mother.

"I wouldn’t tell anyone about it, but if anyone other than you were to walk in, I fear what it would do to his reputation."

"Oh dear," Beatrice chuckled, covering her mouth with her left hand to hide how insensitive she was being at the moment. "Forgive me for laughing at your concern, but I cannot help it when anyone speaks about his reputation. Rafael has never cared about it. I know he likes to avoid scandals with women because there is talk about marriage in it, but that is all."

"We’ve had our fair share of people pointing fingers at us and talking about us because of me. The woman who supposedly lost everything. He had to sometimes listen to being called the son of a bastard because of rumours my family started. He suffered a lot in his youth before River’s father gave us a home of our own," said Beatrice.

"I have never heard him speak about his grandfather nor has anyone in the manor spoken of him. I’m sorry for bringing him up if it is a sad topic," Annalise apologised.

"Don’t. I mentioned him first. His grandfather has long passed away. He gave his all to protect the kingdom and sadly passed away in battle. Truthfully, Nicolas had adopted River, but he acted more like a blood father to him. He would tell me the stories of how he visited the orphanage where River lived and how there was a stubborn boy he could never get to speak to him," Beatrice said, smiling as she reminisced on the past.

"My husband was found floating down a river. We are yet to know what reason someone would do it to a child so young, but River believes whatever parent had taken him to the river was hoping he would die when they placed him in the water. He was found by a farmer who took him to the orphanage. Nicolas was a knight at the time and visited the young boys at the orphanage."

"He took a liking to River and treated him as his own son. Helped us hide from my family and when he was given a home by the previous king, he gave it to us. His last name was Callahan and he made great efforts to have River take his name. Since River is not his blood son many like to say we have stolen the name. If not for me, River could have settled down peacefully," Beatrice said, looking down at River speaking with Rafael.

Sometimes she felt like she had ruined his life because of her family harassing him, speaking ill of him, and now Travis was troubling him. She could not imagine a day without her husband, but with Travis sending her letters daily, she couldn’t help but wonder if River would have been better off without her.

There was a pain in her heart to think of Rafael not being in this world and missing out on all the fun memories with River, but then she was equally hurt by all the names and nasty things River had to hear.

Beatrice smiled to not worry Annalise. "Do not mind this old woman’s tears," she said, wiping away the tears that fell. "I didn’t mean to go to such a sad place. Forgive me."

Annalise knew it was her turn to comfort Beatrice so she reached out to the other side of the table to hold Beatrice’s hand. "You are not old," she said.

Beatrice stopped and stared at Annalise. Soon laughter fell upon the two of them as Beatrice could not control herself. "You are something, Annalise. I see why," she stopped before she could make Rafael angry. "I see why you brighten up the rooms you walk into. Remember, that I will never judge you. I have no place to. I’ve long stopped caring about reputations and what other people think."

Beatrice learned the hard way that she could not please everyone so she sat back and let Rafael do as he wanted instead of trying to control his life.

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